Hands-on with doo for BlackBerry 10

Not too long ago we took a look at doo, which offers a quick way to not only assign tasks and shortcuts to the volume and power buttons but to create shortcut icons on the homescreen to improve productivity. It accomplishes this through its bright and easy-to-use interface. Doo by CellNinja is a headless app which gives you a more efficient way to launch apps, compose emails, texts and BBM's, dial a contact, turn the flashlight on, and perform various other actions all with just a double click or long press of a button or button combination.

When you first launch doo, the first thing you notice is the colorful interface, which is easy to navigate. To access each feature, simply swipe to the right. The active menus appear as pink rectangular boxes, while the inactive ones will be transparent. This gives the app a nice flow and feel.

Button Shortcuts is the first menu option you can select from in doo. When selected, you are presented with a list of button and button combinations which are available to assign and trigger a particular function. These include the Volume UP/DOWN keys, the Play button, and the Power key. With the exception of the last two button combinations, rather than simply assigning one action per button, you have the option of two – one by double clicking and another with a long press.

To assign an action to a specific button, the first step is to choose between Double Click and Long Press. Next, you can designate a specific function such as launching an app, calling a specific contact, start an SMS, BBM, or email conversation, start/stop an audio recording, open the hub to a specific account, launch the flashlight, open a folder, access the clipboard, or remove the action assigned to a button from the Select An Action screen. What is most important about this step is remembering what tasks were assigned to which button, and whether it requires a long press or double click to trigger. The only issue I encountered is clicking too fast or too slow. By going into Settings, you can adjust the double click or long press interval.

In addition to offering button shortcuts, doo also generates homescreen icon shortcuts. When you tap on the pink rectangular box from the main menu, it brings up the familiar Select An Action menu. As with creating a button shortcut, simply choose the action to perform and enter in the name for the icon. What is nice is how doo notifies you the action has been completed. Rather than the standard black dialog box, you receive a simple post-it note like message notifying you the action completed. It's paying attention to the little details such as this that makes doo a solid native app.

BlackBerry and productivity go hand in hand. If you are looking to enhance your efficiency on a daily basis, doo is one to accomplish that. You can find doo in BlackBerry World for $1.99. It supports all BlackBerry 10 devices.

It can't do that, it would be possible to add it as a new action but I'm wondering why you want this? To me, the swipe gesture is fast enough, having a button shortcut wouldn't make this process any faster.

Can your app open multiple apps under one button?
I am looking for an app that can set my phone into different modes, i.e. 'work', 'play', 'night', etc. Each mode would set things like screen brightness, volume, apps open or closed, etc.

The first Dev that writes an app that can do this will be rich.

PS - I can do some of these function by using the baked'in NFC app and a tag. Unfortunately, it is not that powerful.

It doesn't remove music control to music players like the other Flashlight apps do, so you'll be able to use doo with any Music Player, including Neutron. If you use the volume UP or volume DOWN buttons, it will raise or lower your volume though.

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